Sunday, 26 April 2009

According to the social evaluation platform Vanno, the answer to the question above is a firm yes. Vanno has been systematically watching the shoes fall at the American Insurance Group (AIG) by looking at a number of reputation bottom-dwellers. The Vanno blog documents the decline of the major American insurance corporation and correlates it to the events of the last six months.

This graph shows the downward trend in AIG's reputation over the six months, along with the most popular AIG-related stories. It is interesting to see how individual events combined to affect reputation. The realization that AIG had burnt through most of the initial bailout money and needed more conspired with tales of luxury junkets to hammer the company’s reputation in the November 2008 timeframe. Subsequent revelations about ongoing lobbying and support for anti-labor legislation, however, only exerted modest additional downward pressure.

The coup de grace was the perfect storm of retention bonuses and the fact that much of the bailout money given to AIG went to other banks - including a number of foreign ones - to pay derivative-related insurance polices at 100 cents on the dollar.

And just how far has AIG fallen? Essentially to the bottom of the 5800 company index that Vanno has set up. AIG is now ranked with the likes of Halliburton, IndyMac Bancorp and Chrysler.

Vanno (www.vanno.com) is an online social evaluation platform that captures trends in gossip, news, opinion and personal insight about companies and brands and converts them into a Company Reputation Index. Designed to turn a brighter light on the behavior of the companies that inhabit our lives, Vanno gives customers, employees, communities, business owners and concerned citizens a forum to engage in civil dialogue. Vanno was founded in 2007 and launched its public beta in October 2008. Vanno is headquartered in San Francisco and was founded by Nick DiGiacomo and Landon Clark.

Thursday, 12 February 2009

With the advent of online tools that make it easy to share information, meet new people and keep in touch faster than ever, reputation has taken on a twofold dimension. Individuals and businesses no longer have to worry about their reputation in real life but in the virtual world as well, making it twice as hard to keep up with what’s being said. There are some ways that you can work to manage your online reputation, however, whether you’re doing it for yourself or for your business. These resources provide tips and tools to make it easier to track, control and manage your online reputation so you stay on top and in control of your personal and professional image. Read more...

Sunday, 2 November 2008

Leadership and vision is one of the pillars that determines the reputation of an organization. The foundations of this pillar are not falling apart but one cannot deny that we are experiencing a national and global shortage of trust in America's leaders. This lack of trust is reflected in the tarnished reputations of American corporations, the U.S. government and the failing financial systems. But, as shown by a recent finding from Reputation Institute, reputations of leaders can be strengthened through a strategic combination of heartfelt actions and communication.

A new study by Reputation Institute names Microsoft's Bill Gates as the most admired CEO in the United States, with 35% of the general public viewing him as the leader they admire most. In addition to Microsoft's Bill Gates, real estate tycoon Donald Trump and Warren E. Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway are the three most respected leaders in the U.S. while CEO of Harpo Productions Oprah Winfrey and Apple's Steve Jobs round out the top five.

"Being seen as a visionary leader who can deliver strong results on the bottom line at the same time as being a good corporate citizen is what the US general public admires. Leaders who link their philanthropic involvement to the core business purpose of their organization are creating the highest level of respect and admiration" says Kasper Nielsen, Managing Partner of the Reputation Institute.

According to Reputation Institute research, the reputation of an entire corporation is built on seven dimensions: products & services, innovation, workplace, governance, citizenship, performance, and vision & leadership. Those final three - citizenship, performance and leadership - have the strongest tie to CEOs. Gates, Buffett and Winfrey each have very visible commitments to philanthropic endeavors. Gates, Trump and Jobs are respected because they have lead their companies to strong financial performance, and all the top five are savvy managers. Though not essential, a strong CEO with these characteristics supports a company's overall reputation strategy and ultimately its bottom line.

After the top five, the next admired corporate leaders include former Chrysler Corporation CEO Lee Iacocca, the late Sam Walton of Wal-Mart, Martha Stewart CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia as well as former CEOs and presidential nominees Ross Perot (Electronic Data Systems) and Mitt Romney (Bain & Co.).

The 2008 Most Admired CEO Study asked over 7,450 American consumers to name up to three CEO's in the United States that they admire most. CEOs were ranked according to number of mentions in response to the question "Please name up to three CEO's in the United States that you admire most." The data was collected between February and March 2008 during fielding for Reputation Institute's annual Global Pulse Study, a study of the reputations of the largest 600 companies in 27 countries, including the 150 largest U.S. companies.

Monday, 1 September 2008

The world of reputation is expanding. This is one of the main conclusions of the 12th International Conference on Reputation, Brand, Identity and Competitiveness which was held between May 28th and June 1st 2008 in Beijing. This conference marked the end of an era and the beginning of the next wave in how to create value from reputation. Let’s go back in time and review how the field has evolved.

At the first conference in 1996 in New York the discussion was about the concept of reputation. What does it mean? How is it defined? Does it matter? Can it be measured? Is it relevant? The first conference launched a period where scholars and practitioners were focused on defining how reputation was influencing organizations and behavior between people.

Approaching the year 2000 the field became further defined and the focus became "if and how reputation can be measured". How can we measure something that is intangible? What creates reputation? How do we understand perceptions? How do we link perception to behavior? The conference in Copenhagen in 2000 marked the next phase where the Reputation Institute began to get real measures of corporate reputation. The Institute was able to look at data from stakeholders evaluating the reputation of companies. These data gave a better understanding of what drives reputation and how perceptions are formed.

Today we know what reputation is. It is the trust, admiration, good feeling and overall esteem people have for an organization. Reputation is created by the perception people have about 6 key dimensions: Emotional Appeal, Products & Services, Leadership & Vision, Workplace & Environment, Financial Performance and Corporate Social Responsibility. We know that strong reputations lead to supportive behavior. And we know that supportive behavior leads to improved performance of organizations.

The next phase of Reputation Management will focus on two key areas: Reputation Systems and Reputing

Reputation SystemsNow that we know how to measure and track reputation we need to integrate this insight into the business decisions we make. Executives will expect from the Reputation Institute to use the knowledge it has to make better business decisions. They also expect the integration of the different measures in a simple and powerful system that works together across functions and stakeholders. This challenges the way organizations are structured. It requires more cross-functional collaboration and common vision for integration.

ReputingOrganizations need to engage with their stakeholders on what is relevant to them in order to create trust, admiration, good feeling and high esteem. Companies need to understand what the stakeholders want from them and how they can become relevant to their stakeholders. Reputing are the actions and communications a company takes to become relevant to its stakeholders. Reputing is using an outside-in perspective rather than an inside-out perspective. It is focusing on stakeholder needs and not the company’s own plans. The strategy is centered on co-creation of trust, respect and admiration through interactions with the ones who are evaluating the organization. The fact that stakeholders do not trust organizations means that there is a need for more personal interactions. Companies need to open up and engage with all stakeholders in a dialogue. Companies need to listen instead of talking. Companies need to ask questions they don’t know the answers to, trust instead of being skeptical, and empower employees to represent the organization because they are the only ambassadors that stakeholders believe.

These two areas of Reputation Systems and Reputing will become the focus of the next period. The question is “How can we create strong reputations?” And so organizations must now ask: “What are the actions that stakeholders like? Which ways can we co-create a better future? How do we involve our employees in the creation of support from stakeholders? How do we manage the risks and leverage the opportunities?”

This poses some challenges to the community involved in the reputation management conversation.

1. We need to focus on integration of measures. How do we link research on reputation, brand, satisfaction, and engagement? How do we link the reputation measures to specific financial performance? How do we make all these measures work together in a simple and integrated matrix so executives can have a quick overview of all the factors influencing business performance?

2. We need to focus on practical examples of how to improve reputation. What works? How do you do it in real life? Which methods work best? Who are the influencers among stakeholders? How do we start and sustain a dialogue with them? How do we involve them in the co-creation of our reputation?

Thursday, 7 August 2008

Have you googled yourself lately? It sounds egocentric but corporations should be very sensitive to this question. Do you know what is being written on the internet about your organization? Are you aware of the fact that people that have a bad experience with your products and services might be jeopardizing the reputation of your organization by starting a blog on the net? Do you realize that blogs can have an enormous negative impact on your corporate reputation? Blogs, forums, wikis and social networks gain popularity every day and without a plan to monitor and manage your company’s online reputation, you could be at risk.

Recently, Fox Business News dedicated a news item to this topic. Blog expert Rob Neppell explained the essence of the importance of blog tracking: “You have to know what is being said about you on the internet. Without having that information you are really flying blind from a public relations standpoint”. Dell Computer Corp. has the honour to be one of the first big corporations that did not know how to deal with a growing number of customers who were ventilating their dissatisfaction by putting blogs on the internet. It all started in August 2005 when Jeff Jarvis started to post a series of messages entitled “Dell Hell” on his blog. He enumerated his struggles with Dell’s customer support service. Very soon, his widely circulated criticism had triggered dozens of other bloggers and hundreds of commenters to publicly complain about the service they received from Dell’s technical support. After two years of struggling with this viral nightmare Dell realized that it should have communicated very sooner with the bloggers. Finally, Jeff Jarvis met CEO Michael Dell, he toured the factories and he was embraced by the Dell management. This case started extremely badly but Dell seemed to learn from the lesson.

Embrace or sue?Should you embrace bloggers that are complaining about your company’s products and services? Or should you sue them? “Suing a blogger is probably the worst thing you can do, unless something illegal is going on. You always look like Goliath beating up on David if you send a legal notice to a blogger” says Rop Neppell. A first lesson is to talk and to communicate with the blogger. Get your facts out. Try to make personal contact with them and say that you are willing to sort out any problem. A second lesson is to understand the blogosphere. Who is a leading blogger? Who can have an impact on others? Does the message get a widespread attention? And how popular are these bloggers?

So, have you googled yourself? What are you waiting for? From a public relations standpoint it is becoming more and more clear that every company is going to have evangelists (who are spreading good news in the blogosphere and who undertake good relations with bloggers) and vigilantes (who are searching for all kind of negative news on your organization) in order to manage the reputation of your organization.